Having discharged his automatic weapon, Reeves discreetly slipped out of the throng, retired to a safe distance, and thrust ten more precious cartridges into the magazine.
"What's up with those guns?" he muttered impatiently, for on either side of the breach he could see the walls black with the soldiers of Croixilia. "Hang 'em! Why don't they open fire?"
But he soon saw that there was something to be done without asking questions, and once again he dashed into the press, checking the Arab rush as before.
"This won't do!" he exclaimed. "Twenty of my precious cartridges gone already, and no permanent good done! If the beggars press another attack as determined as this, it will be touch and go with us. Ugh, you brute!" This last to an apparently-wounded Baggara, who, leaping up from the ground flourishing a keen-bladed spear, rushed straight upon the practically unarmed Englishman.
Up went Reeves's pistol; but the son of the desert, once he is enjoying the lust of battle, cares not for a loaded firearm, let alone an empty one. Here was his chance to send an unbeliever on his path to the kingdom of Shaitan, and himself to an assured paradise.
Hurling his useless weapon at the Baggara, and missing his shock-haired head by an inch, Reeves threw himself into the approved boxing attitude. But ere the Arab's blade came within striking distance, a man threw himself bodily upon Reeves on his left or blind side. The Englishman, taken completely by surprise, staggered a good half-dozen paces, and finally, tripping over a dead archer, sat half-dazed upon the ground.
Even as he sat there he saw a great blade flash in the torchlight, and the Baggara, his hide shield and muscular chest shorn through by a single blow, fell lifeless.
"You could be ill spared, my brother," shouted a well-known voice, as Garth stooped and grasped the Englishman by the hand.
"Thanks!" replied Reeves shortly but nevertheless gratefully; and recovering and reloading his pistol he followed his comrade-in-arms once more into the fray.
Suddenly, with a terrific, ear-splitting detonation, two guns upon the wall sent their death-dealing charges of grapeshot into the thickest of the Arab assailants. The result was similar to that of a sharp scythe cutting wheat, and a double line appeared in the compact, howling, surging press. With redoubled shouts of encouragement and triumph the Croixilians swept away those of their foes who were immediately opposed to them, and before the discomfited Arabs on the outer side of the sloping bank of stone rubble could rally, they too were forced back across the choked moat. Now there was room for the archers, and from the walls, the houses behind the breach, and the deadly gap itself flights of arrows sped into the Moslem ranks. Once again the guns, reloaded with desperate haste, added to the carnage. This was more than fanatical courage could stand; the repulse became a disorderly retreat.